Getting into Mali I thought we would drive into a place feeling almost like a war-zone where we would have to be escorted by convoys and have to go through even more police checkpoints than in Mauritania, but that was not the case. Driving through and bush camping here has shown us that most of Mali is very peaceful with some of the friendliest people so far on this trip.
The week we spent waiting for our Burkina Faso and Nigeria we got to go on a boat ride at the Niger River, do some walking in the National Park and eat our way through the cheap food they were selling on the street there.
Bamako was also the biggest city we had visited in West Africa, so most of us were also happy to go out at night and do some shopping of the things that had been hard to get earlier on the trip like tents, electronics and some Western food from the supermarkets.
Bamako was great, but leaving this country without seeing the mystic city of Timbuktu or the preserved culture of the Dogon people made me promise myself that I one day will have to come back to this country.
